Scores dead in Iranian train blast

A train carrying industrial chemicals burns after it exploded outside the Iranian town of Neyshapur, Iran, in this image from television. Photograph: Iranian TV/AP

Many people were killed when train carriages carrying industrial chemicals derailed and exploded in Iran today, causing widespread devastation in five villages, according to reports.

There was some confusion about the number of fatalities, which included senior officials from the north-eastern city of Nishapur. Reports of the number of dead ranged from 60 to more than 200.

The disaster happened when around 50 carriages carrying petrol, fertiliser and sulphur products, waiting at Abu Muslim station, in Nishapur, began moving unexpectedly, possibly because of earth tremours.

Speeding without an engine or anyone in control, the wagons overturned when they reached the next stop, Khayyam, which is around 20km (13 miles) outside the city.

A blaze began and, as firefighters tackled the flames, a series of explosions devastated the carriages.

The Associated Press said that the dead comprised officials, including the local governor, mayor and fire chief, and 182 fire and rescue workers. At least 400 people were reported to have been injured.

Homes in villages near the train tracks, most of them small mud houses, collapsed from the force of the explosion.

The ferocity of the blast was such that windows were reported to have been shattered within a radius of more than 10km, according to the state-run Islamic Republic news agency (IRNA), which distributed all early information about the disaster.

Governor Mojtaba Farahmand-Nekou, the head of the Neyshabur fire department and the city's mayor all died, IRNA reported, quoting unidentified officials at the Khorassan province governor-general's office.

The report said the head of the city's energy department had also been killed, and that the director-general of provincial railways was missing.

Television pictures showed the scene littered with twisted wreckage and burning carriages. Dozens of people, some wearing face masks to protect themselves from the smoke, were seen trying to tackle the flames.

IRNA quoted local officials as saying that most of the casualties were in five nearby villages that had been "destroyed", although it was not clear exactly how bad the damage was.

The villages of Dehnow and Hashemabad were among those reported to have been affected.

"The whole city is shocked by this accident. Official vehicles mounted with loudspeakers are roaming the city, calling for volunteers to donate blood," Saeed Kaviani, the editor of the Sobh-e-Neyshabur newspaper, said.

Dozens of people remained buried under the rubble of their homes in the villages, he added.

Vahid Bakechi, a senior official in the Khorasan province's emergency headquarters, warned that the final assessment of damage was likely to be far worse than initial estimates.

He said: "The scale of the devastation is very great, and the damage appears more than initially thought. The emergency team is transferring more than 350 injured to hospitals nearby."

Nishapur lies 650km east of Iran's capital, Tehran. The country suffers from earthquakes and tremors, with a December 26 quake in the ancient city of Bam, in the south-east, killing more than 40,000 people.